Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Coming up for two weeks in, a few words about this blog and its somewhat chequered early career.

somewhat along lines that Eli and the mice suggested, but of course with some differences. Anyone who listened only to small furry animals should rent space between their ears, but we are cute. Their intention is

. . . to offer a wide range of interesting, if controversial, views and in doing so, to represent a diversity of expert opinions over time. News travels fast in the blogosphere, however, and our somewhat unclear beginnings did not go unnoticed. As a result we found that some researchers who had previously offered themselves as willing bloggers no longer wished to make that offer, leading us, as William noted, to revise our “core contributors” list to “recent contributors”, just listing those who had posted on the site to date.

This change also reflects our intention to broaden our blogging base;

Anyhow, take Olive Heffernan up on her suggestion

We remain open to suggestions from you all about how to make the blog a useful addition to one of the world’s most pressing conversations. We look forward to many fruitful discussions on climate change in our journals and others, in the news, and in the world at large.

Today I am testifying before the House Committee on Science and Technology of the U.S. Congress. In my testimony I argue that we should pay attention to development paths in addition to the mitigation of greenhouse gases. You can see my testimony in full here

There seems to be general agreement on these points, yet the whole issue of Atlantic hurricanes is mired in controversy over the role of global warming. It is not a disagreement that SSTs are higher but rather whether the warming is due to natural processes such as the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation or global warming. To the public, the result is the same for now. To me this is obvious: global warming is “unequivocal” to quote the recent IPCC Working Group I report and global SSTs have increased about 0.6 degrees C. In the last half century this warming is associated with increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It is not possible that the Atlantic has escaped from this warming.

10 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Climate fleabag is relaunching?

Let me go get the beer, chips and salsa....and the lounge chair.

This should be even more entertaining the second time around.

I love this one:

"News [a thrashing] travels fast [faster'n you can say "Hockey stick" ] in the blogosphere [they even learned some of the lingo] , however, and our somewhat unclear [as mud ...and moronic too] beginnings did not go unnoticed [not unlike poison ivy] . As a result we found that some researchers [real ones] who had previously offered themselves as willing bloggers no longer wished to make that offer [because they did not want to be associated with crap]."

Maybe Pielke is now expanding his Pielkiness and pontificating on other policy issues. He's even popping up in areas that having NOTHING to do with climate change, such as this recent article on FDA panels that approve drugs. This appeared in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and the only reason I ran across it is because a friend sent it to me.

---------------------------------Roger Pielke Jr., Ph.D., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado in Boulder said the guidelines are helpful. "They allow some sunshine on the process. But I guess there are still some dark corners that need illuminations."

For example, why choose $50,000 as the threshold, Pielke and other experts asked. According to the FDA, $50,000 was chosen as a level they can live with. They say it effectively strikes a balance between the amounts of financial interests that are commonly seen in the research community and the agency's ability to recruit committee members with relevant expertise.

[snip]

There's also the law of unintended consequences. Having a published threshold opens up the possibility of gaming the system. For example, companies could structure their payments to researchers so that the scientists can still sit on an FDA panel, Pielke said.

"In the future you will see a lot of people who have financial interests of $49,999," he said.--------------------------------

It's not that I necessarily disagree. I just wonder how Roger has expertise with FDA panels. And I am interested in knowing if he ever raised this issue when a journalist rang him up.

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Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett is a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny, a chair election from retirement, at a wanna be research university that has a lot to be proud of but has swallowed the Kool-Aid. The students are naive but great and the administrators vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional. His colleagues are smart, but they have a curious inability to see the holes that they dig for themselves. Prof. Rabett is thankful that they occasionally heed his pointing out the implications of the various enthusiasms that rattle around the department and school. Ms. Rabett is thankful that Prof. Rabett occasionally heeds her pointing out that he is nuts.